The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde.

WILDE, Oscar.

Item Number: 139739

Garden City, NY: Doubeday, Page & Company, 1923.

The Patrons’ edition de luxe of the complete works of Oscar Wilde. Octavo, 12 volumes, original publisher’s quarters leather with paper spine labels, top edge gilt. Introduction by A. B. Walkley. In near fine condition.

Wilde’s “theme is not, as is often supposed, art’s divorce from life, but its inescapable arraignment by experience. His creative works almost always end in unmasking. The hand that adjusts the green carnation suddenly shakes an admonitory finger. While the ultimate virtue in Wilde’s essays is in make-believe, the denouement of his dramas and narratives is that masks have to go. We must acknowledge what we are. Wilde at least was keen to do so. Though he offered himself as the apostle of pleasure, his created world contains much pain” (Ellmann, xvi). Includes The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, Salome, Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, De Profundis, and other major works, along with his poems, essays, and critical reviews.